June+27+Logger

Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Logger’s Notes

South Central Kansas Writing Project Head chefs and their attentive “chefs in training” began cooking some delicious creations on Wednesday morning after Kendra read Teralyn’s logger notes from the previous day.

First, Mary whetted our appetites with her favorite green salad as she read two sample poems, “Love Poem” by Donald Hall and “Life” by Dawn Zhao. Unable to decide upon a single entrée, Mary gave free rein to her student cooks, bidding us to choose our writing prompt: “Write about how you live life or how you love.” After a time of writing, we enjoyed her gooey butter cake, the ultimate coffee cake, in a time of sharing. I was to be logging at the time, but listened with rapt attention to numerous readers, before remembering to log descriptions of what each person wrote. My apologies to all omitted at this point. Note to self, much like my logging skills, if one obtains all the ingredients for a wonderful new recipe, but forgets to prepare them, one ends up with nothing at the end of the day.

Kendra’s enjoyed desert first; peppermint ice cream as she served up a powerful poem; a metaphor for love. It can be re-read on her blog page.

Nancy created some good solid, every day cooking with her “Cheesy Potatoes” as she lovingly shared her grandchildren’s voices as heard when visiting grandma. “ No, Cooper, No!” “Grandma, do you want to be the bad guy? Grandma, pretend you are Snow White?” “ No, Cooper, No!”

Dennis was presenting his Teacher Demo as the paper was passed to sign up for your favorite recipe, so we’ll never know his, but fortunately, he stirred up a batch of good thoughts and quotes for living life. We’ve heard many of them before, yet were struck with the permanence of their truth.

Marilyn grilled up steaks and baked sweet potatoes, being an outdoorsy type of gal. She painted images of a life immersed in nature. One might explore the pond, meet her dog, spy or smell a malodorous muskrat, view a clutch of ducklings, or be attacked of an abusive doe in Marilyn’s bucolic digs in the sand hills surrounding her home.

Meg stir-fried a great variety of veggies creating a single dish as she shared multiple snapshots revealing passage of time and the associated emotions at those times.

Dennis, unaware of the culinary undercover work that was underway began his Teaching Demo by sharing the history and beginning stages of the IB curriculum at Hutchinson High School. Like a famous chef from a foreign land, sharing foods new and exotic, Dennis explained the Earth Charter’s connection to IB as well as many Internet links that will take us on Internet travels in search of deeper understanding. The analogy of wholesome food did earn mention in his explanation of Deep Teaching Process for Teaching Connections. Challenging our organizational skills, he bid us to work in groups to respond to an IB prescribed essay title by generating an outline. Student chefs began shouting out numbers as if ordering Deli carry out orders or an Oriental restaurant.

Calling out, “We’ll have a go at # 2”, Kendra, Christine, Nancy, Geri, Sam and Meg organized their thoughts concerning justifying moral decisions with reason versus emotion.

Rachel and Sandy claimed meal # 5 learning more about life from novels than from scientific psychology.

Marilyn and Shirleen – also got cooking on #2 wrote questions and brainstormed definitions for moral decisions, emotions, reason, truth,

Mary ordered a # 6 with the thought that when one uses a model or recipe until its use becomes a strength, one can then allows oneself to break the rules artistically and creatively. Sounds to me like a Pampered Chef!

Becky sifted out realities of knowing leads to lies or knowing leads to truth.

Having read our recipes aloud, Gerri and Nancy pronounced it “Officially Lunchtime, as we had all worked up sincere and monumental appetites!

Upon returning from lunch, Sam gave us a template for the Research pape. We learned that the Chapter 3 & 4 readings and discussion will be moved to July 5th, causing the steam and fluff to go out of the soufflé and blood pressures to drop in relief!

Dispite Geri’s claim to enjoy Shrimp and salad the best, she chose a pork dish for her stint in the Author’s Chair – reading – A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck, which depicted a tug-of-war birthday for a calf and the dreaded Aunt Maddy with her “remedy” and tooter-ing. The story was seasoned with rib tickling language, using the expression, “More than ribs could take” and “I don’t have brains enough to dump sand out of a boot.” The sampling team enjoyed the reading as evidenced by gales of laughter throughout.

Shirleen’s Article Review extolled the virtues of a Frugal Gourmet with the title, “Writing Assessment: Do It Better, Do It Less” by Peter Elbow. He proposed ways to minimize the untrustworthiness of quantitative writing assessment, because if you can’t trust the ingredients to act as they should, what’s the point of cooking?

Student chefs were then given time to practice cooking, invent new recipes and taste dishes formerly prepared in small writing groups. The day ended for Nancy and Meg as Nancy helped add some beef to Meg’s story. In closing, it was a miserable day for meringues, as it rained from start to finish!

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